


and even from my soul leaves fall

by amells (aeviternal)



Series: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Bickering, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Pre-Relationship, guess which parts are which, my amell is a whiny little bitch and i love her more than life itself, some of this is six months old, some of this was written in a burst of sleep deprived inspiration without proof reading, there's a few snippets of canon dialogue in here but only in the beginning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-12
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-09-16 15:31:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16956654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeviternal/pseuds/amells
Summary: Warden Cedany Amell is finally let in on the big secret of the Calling and all that it entails.She... well, she doesn't take it well.





	and even from my soul leaves fall

**Author's Note:**

> title is from a pablo neruda poem

She finds out on a Tuesday, because apparently all shitty things wait until Tuesdays to make themselves known.

They’ve set up camp somewhere between the Wilds and the Southron Hills; the trees shield the stars from view, and a dark night has fallen over them all slowly, like a beast taking the group into its maw one-by-one. The forest is quiet, quieter than she’s really comfortable with, and the evening is surprisingly cool. Summer’s already begun to lay down its roots, but the air doesn’t feel like it, sharp and brittle with the cold, and Cedany huddles a little closer to the campfire for warmth, her skin prickling oddly, as though a thousand tiny glass shards were brushing it. Almost everyone else has already turned in; Max is doubtlessly curled up like the overgrown pup he is among her things in her tent, and Leliana and Zevran had both headed off ages ago with orders to _get some sleep._

Granted, Zevran’s had been a lot more suggestive than it had been concerned, but still.

She’s not sure that Shale _actually sleeps,_ which is probably something she should ask about, but Sten most definitely does, judging by the ground-shaking snores she can hear from his tent. Even Morrigan’s distant campfire has been extinguished, leaving the world beyond the ring of light cast by their own fire a dark abyss. Which is a pain, really, because usually she comes out if Cedany’s still up and they have a chat – sometimes about magic, about the Wilds and the Circle and the difference between them, about how it feels to climb a tree or leap into a lake, but lately more often about Flemeth and the future and other boring, serious things that make Cedany’s chest hurt to think of too long – but this time she seems too caught up in her mother’s grimoire. And Cedany can’t honestly blame her for that, not really, but— she misses the company. A bit. Maybe.

It’d help if she could _sleep,_ but her blood’s still up, still singing in her veins; the tip of her braid had been singed black only hours ago by Flemeth’s dragon-fire – _dragon-fire,_ and _Maker,_ if Cedany ever finds out how to turn into a dragon maybe she’ll stop freaking Alistair out by changing into that spider he hates so much every time his back is turned – and her hands are still shaking in her lap, which makes stitching up the hole in her shirt as she’s been trying to do for _ages_ less than easy. The campfire is flickering a little wildly in the wind, too, so she has to squint to find the right places to sew.

Maker, but she really is bad at this. She’s already pricked her thumb thrice, and the ends of her thread are all frayed from her catastrophic attempts to push them through the needle. Back in the Circle, the apprentices used to be assigned shifts doing all sorts of menial tasks, but after she set fire to Senior Enchanter Eldora’s underthings in a fit of pique, the higher-ups kept her away from the laundering and repair jobs. For good bloody reason, too, because she’s about to set _her own shit_ on fire, honestly—

“’llo.”

Cedany hisses, her finger flaring with pain as she drives the needle in deep. When she pulls it out, it’s stained darkly; crimson runs under her nail, blooms in small, slow droplets on the shirt below. “For fuck’s—”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alistair whispers furiously, settling in on the bench beside her. “Didn’t mean to startle you, sorry.”

It’s a small space; he has to press his leg right against hers to fit. Which is odd, because she’s never thought of either of them as particularly large-arsed, but if the shoe fits, she supposes.

She sucks her finger into her mouth. “S’fine, fuck.”

“What’re you doing?”

Waving her hand about like that’ll _actually do something,_ she answers, “trying to ignore an idiot.”

“Ouch, ouch. That hurts me, you know.”

A snort. “Sort of the point, don’t you think?”

She sends a quick pulse of tentative healing magic down her arm, and promptly swears when it does nothing. Seriously? _Seriously?_ She’s a good mage, but the moment she tries her hand at healing magic, oh, _noooo—_

“You doing alright? Thought I saw Flemeth get a good hit on you, for a moment.” He’s looking her over carefully and not at all subtly, his eyes catching on the blackened ends of her plait and staying there.

She scoffs. “Me? I’m right as rain. It’ll take more than a _dragon_ to take me out.”

“Ooh, don’t tell Morrigan that; if you’re not careful, Her Nastiness might try her hand at it.”

“Nah, Morrigan loves me. I’d pay good money to watch her have a go at _you_ , though.”

Pouting, he says, “and to think, I came over here to offer you my skills. See if I try and help _you_ again.”

“Your ‘skills’? And what _skills_ are those, o’ illustrious one?”

Alistair sniffs primly, his lips twitching. “I have many varied skills, thank you very much. Why, just this evening I used my undeniable cooking skills to great effect, didn’t I?”

“I’m not sure that’s what I’d call it.” Thinking back on the thing he’d called a _stew_ makes her stomach turn.

“Yeah? And what _would_ you call it?”

“Hm, let’s see. An attempt at poisoning? Almost murder? Oh! You got sick of playing second fiddle and _finally_ tried to off— hey!”

Shoving his elbow away from her ribs, she sticks her tongue out.

“Alright, well, maybe my cooking isn’t the best.” He points a finger in her face. “Not that that means I _deserve_ such slander, but fine. My sewing is much better, I swear.”

“ _You_ can sew?” She cocks a brow, trying not to grin and failing, judging by the look on his face.

“Well if you’re going to be like _that_ about it—”

“Sorry. But— no, actually, I’m not, why do _you_ know how to _sew?_ ”

“What, you think I never tear my clothes?” She gives him a look, and he colours a bit. “Alright, I might’ve… asked Wynne to teach me.”

A snort, then, her lips twitching even as she tries to smother the laugh. “ _Wynne_ taught you?”

“Well she didn’t… _teach_ me. I knew how to sew anyway. She just helped me improve, sort of.” He shrugs. “Sewing’s a priceless life skill, you know, just like all my other skills.”

“What, standing around and gawping like an idiot is a life skill? Here I thought you were just an amateur apprentice.”

He frowns. “I can’t… actually figure out if that’s an insult or not, you know. But, fine, if you don’t want my _skilled fingers_ —” A pause, here, as she huffs out a surprised laugh and his mouth twitches, the tips of his ears looking a bit pink. “And, uh— by _that_ , I mean my _skilled-at-sewing fingers_. If you don’t want my skilled-at-sewing fingers, then I can always just…”

“No, no.” She all but throws the shirt at him, offering him the needle with just a _smidge_ more care. “By all means. Though if I’m walking around in wonky stitches, Alistair, I swear to all that is holy—”

He chuckles. “I’m a _brilliant_ stitcher, shush.”

“That’s not a _word,_ idiot.”

“ _Shush.”_

And he starts to sew. Not even _badly,_ either, which is basically an insult to _all that Cedany is as a person,_ because she should _absolutely_ be better at this than him, by virtue of… childhood experience, or something. What the _fuck._

She warms her hands by the fire as she watches, stretching out her legs almost languidly. Her hips creak a bit, shoulders aching as she tries to pull the stiffness out of them. She feels like she’s somehow aged about fifty years in the span of a few months; if she’s not careful, she’ll soon be as old and brittle as Wynne.

Which is actually not saying much, because despite her age, Wynne is surprisingly nimble.

A sigh. She should probably go to sleep. She should really, actually, _properly_ make an effort, even if more often than not she’s been finding herself rearing up hours before dawn with nightmares on her brain these days. And not even just fucking _Warden_ nightmares, which are awful but infinitely preferable to the memory of Auden’s face distorted by demons, or bright Petra, pale with fear. Kinloch had felt _dirty_ to walk through, and the feeling hasn’t really gone away, even though it’s been _weeks._ At least when she dreams of the archdemon, it doesn’t bloody stick with her all fucking _day_.

She hums, folding herself back together so her ankles are tucked into each other, arms crossed over her thighs. “Alistair?”

“Mm?”

“I’ve got a question.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she catches him giving her a funny look. “ _Riiight._ And are you going to ask it?”

She snorts. “Shut up, prick.”

“Could _absolutely_ still make these stitches wonky, if you want—”

Nudging him in the side with her elbow hard enough to make him hiss, she says, “right. So. We’ve covered the whole fun nightmares part of this… Warden… _thing._ What else? What changes about you after the Joining?”

“You mean _other_ than becoming a Grey Warden?”

“Well _obviously._ ”

He hums. “You know, I asked Duncan that, too, and all that _I_ got was, ‘you’ll see’.”

“Just _try_ and use that line on me, I dare you.”

He mumbles something that she doesn’t quite catch. Is it just the dim light, or is he blushing?

“What?”

He clears his throat. “Nothing. Uh. It wasn’t that Duncan _wanted_ to keep it a secret, I don’t think. It’s just that the Grey Wardens don’t discuss it much. I gather it’s not a pleasant topic. But the first change I noticed was an increase in appetite. I used to get up in the middle of the night and raid the castle larder. I thought I was starving. I’d slurp down every dinner like it was my last, my face all covered in gravy. When I’d look up, the other Grey Wardens would stare… then laugh themselves to tears.”

Cedany snorts a laugh, the image unfolding easily in her mind’s eye; Alistair’s stupid chin dripping with sauce, his mouth smeared with crumbs. He eats like a bloody _animal,_ Alistair; Wynne’d tried her hand at some sort of herbal slop two nights back, and it’d tasted like rancid _shit_ to her tongue, but he still went at it like a bear might something very small and very squishy. Mouth like a beast, that one, and a stomach of steel.

“Did it never occur to you that you might just be a pig?”

He laughs. “Oi, I was raised by dogs, remember? They don’t exactly care much about _table manners._ ”

“Are you calling Max a pig? Because I _might_ have to hit you if you are.”

“Listen, I love that dog, but he’s not exactly _nea—_ oi!”

“I _said_ I would,” she cackles, retracting her hand from his shoulder with a golden feeling of triumph warming her belly.

With a pout, he defends, “him being a pig isn’t _bad._ He drops his meals into Morrigan’s bedroll half the time, he’s my favourite person in this camp.”

She hums an agreement – if only because she hasn’t exactly been subtle about the fact that she would absolutely choose her dog over everyone else in the entire world in a _heartbeat,_ no contest – and for a moment they sit in companionable silence. Then she sighs, reclining back a bit and tilting her head. “What else, then?”

“Hm? Oh.” Alistair shifts the shirt a little bit to get a better angle. It’s weird, seeing his unarmoured fingers out in the open like this. Most of the time, if she’s looking at his hands it’s to copy his grip on a sword, and then he’s always got his gauntlets on. He has surprisingly nice hands, actually, now that she’s looking at them. Big, quick. Warrior’s hands; you’d never find their like in the Circle.

“Well,” he begins, and she has to blink several times to remember what they’re talking about. “You know about the nightmares. Duncan said it was part of how we sense the darkspawn. We tap into their… well, I don’t know what you’d call it. Their ‘group mind’, I suppose. And when we sleep, it’s even worse. You learn to block it out after a while, but at first it’s hard.” He pauses, then looks up to meet her eye in a stare so deep that she shifts with discomfort. “It’s supposed to be worse for those who join during a Blight, actually. How is it for you?”

See, but this is veering the conversation into the exact territory she was trying to avoid. For a moment, she sees it in her mind’s eye: the dragon, screeching like some sort of fucked up mix between a wailing child and an _actual demon;_ the darkspawn, coalescing at its feet, their ranks so full and fluid that they look like a pool of black blood about its claws; the bone-deep feeling of icy horror that always lurks in such dreams, cutting right down to her marrows.

She shakes her head, clears her throat. Thinks longingly of the wineskin Leliana had taken to bed with her.

“Uh. Fine. Nothing to get excited about.”

His eyes are still on her, even though at some point she’d looked away. She can _feel_ them, which is ridiculous. Fucking Alistair, honestly. Trying to— to _see down to her soul,_ or whatever kind of dramatic shit Leliana sometimes talks about in her stories.

Fuck that.

“Right. Well, some people never have much trouble. Others have trouble sleeping their entire life. They’re just more sensitive, I suppose. Everyone ends up the same, though. Once you reach a certain age, the real nightmares come. That’s how a Grey Warden knows his time has come.”

“‘His time has come’? Ooh, sounds ominous. What’s it mean, then?”

Alistair goes very still for a moment; she can feel his leg stiffen against hers. “Right. We never had the time to tell you that part, did we?”

“What part?” When Cedany looks at him again, his eyes are glued to the needle in his hands. With something cold and sharp unfurling in her belly, she presses, “Alistair, _what_?”

“Well.” He clears his throat and leans down further, though whether he actually needs to look _that_ closely at her mostly-mended shirt is… debatable. “In addition to all the other _wonderful_ things about being a Grey Warden, you don’t need to worry about dying from old age. You’ve got thirty years to live. Give or take.”

When Cedany was eleven, she went through a phase of extreme anger at the Circle. Well. Alright. So. She says a ‘phase’, and that’s not really true, because that implies that it ever _stopped_ , but— ugh. What she means is: she got violent. _More_ violent, that is. Violent to people she _really_ shouldn’t be getting violent to. She has a crystal-clear memory of Irving pulling her into his office after her third smiting in a week and trying to teach her breathing exercises. To ‘calm her storm’, he’d said, as Irving said all things: with an odd blend of wry amusement and careful concern. She thinks of those techniques now, runs through them in her head as Alistair keeps talking and she keeps half-listening.

They hadn’t worked then, either.

“What the _fuck?_ ” she manages to choke out at last. It occurs to her vaguely that she should probably be quieter, and then she decides that _no,_ she _won’t,_ because this is _bullshit,_ because if she wants to wake up the entire camp with her anger then she damned well _will_.

Alistair jumps like she’s slapped him, which honestly doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea, now that she thinks about it, fucking _shit_. “Keep it down, Ced, it’s late—”

“No, no, ha, _no._ You don’t tell me to shut up. What the _fuck._ You’re telling me that— that, what, I’m _dying?_ ”

He shifts, then dares to meet her eye. Which is a mistake, really, because she wants to _hit him,_ holy _Maker._ “And you wondered _why_ we kept the Joining a secret from the new recruits. Well.” He flails a hand about uselessly. “There you have it.”

Her mouth moves for a minute, but no words come out. What the fuck do you _say_ to something like that? “No, not _‘there you have it’._ You— I’m _dying._ ”

“Not _now._ I mean. Yes, I suppose, but it’s _slow,_ you won’t notice—”

“Oh, it’s _slow,_ that’s _so much better_.”

Alistair’s wincing; one of his hands rises to scratch his brow. He doesn’t say anything.

She’s dying. Cedany. Her. She’s just— she’s _dying._ And, look, it’s not as though she hasn’t _imagined_ her death at some point a long the way, not as though she hasn’t taken a look at the odds and the darkspawn and the bandits and gone, _hm, maybe this isn’t the recipe for a particularly long life, Ced,_ but— but that’s different! That’s all… all hypotheticals, all deal-with-you-laters, all far-off and unimportant, because she’s _Cedany fucking Amell_ and there’s no way she’s going down easy, no way she’s going down at _all._ She’s— fuck. _Fuck._ To know that she’s dying _now,_ that she’s actively on her way out the door in this moment, this exact second—

She feels sick. “I— how long have you known about this?”

Alistair swallows. “Uh. Since about two months after my Joining, give or take.”

“You— you _knew,_ this _entire time,_ and you didn’t tell me? _Months,_ Alistair. You’ve known me _months!_ ”

“Well— when exactly was I supposed to say something, Cedany? It’s not exactly something you can bring up in everyday conversation.”

“ _Not something—_ oh, I don’t know, maybe you could’ve just, at any point in the _months_ we’ve been on the road, said: oh, Cedany, _by the way,_ fun little fact: you’re dying. Just thought you should know _._ ”

“Look, I’m _sorry,_ I just—”

“No, I cannot _believe_ you—”

She rears up, then, and storms off to her tent. Sleep or no sleep, she’s not staying out with him for another fucking _second_ , holy _Maker—_

 

* * *

 

Cedany stops talking to Alistair.

The others notice, though that’s hardly surprising, since they were almost definitely woken up by the argument that started it all in the first place. Leliana seems a little sad; she keeps appealing to her to give Alistair a chance and forgive him, and doesn’t stop until Cedany threatens to set Max on her shoes. Even then, she only backs off a little, her mouth tight, and she sighs whenever Cedany spits or snaps at Alistair, making sure to be very vocal about her disapproval.

Which is fine, because Morrigan enjoys it _immensely,_ and that more than makes up for it.

It reminds Cedany a little bit of the Circle, and how everyone used to take care of each other whenever a templar had decided their lives weren’t shit enough already. When the nasty curly-headed one had first started to show an interest in her, the others used to crowd in and take care of her. More than once, Jowan had stepped in between them to block her from his line of sight, and Eirene used to link their arms and usher her back somewhere busy whenever he stared too long. Linnet used to spit and snarl under her breath – and, later, _not_ under her breath – every time she caught him looking, and she hadn’t been the only one; the things that could come out of Clothilde’s mouth when the younger ones weren’t around could be _shocking._

This is sharper than any of that. More volatile. More dangerous. Like the stirrings of storm magic in the air, almost. She likes it even more.

Alistair tries to come up and talk about it the next day, when they’ve stopped to take lunch, and Morrigan rolls her eyes so hard that it looks _painful._ “My apologies, Cedany, but do you hear something? ‘Twould seem a particularly annoying gnat has caught our scent.”

Cedany smothers the poisonous chuckle she can taste on her tongue with a mouthful of— Maker, she doesn’t even _know_ what. Leftover stew of some kind? “No, Morrigan, can’t say I do. Maybe your ears need checking? Or maybe we should just move somewhere else; somewhere the flies can’t bother us.”

And so it goes. They bump into some assassins tasked with delivering Leliana’s red head on a pike to that _bitch_ Leliana talks about only in quiet, sad tones, and Cedany softens enough to ask the bard if she’s alright. Nothing of Alistair is said between them, not even after Cedany pledges to go to Denerim for her, and it’s a nice change. Relaxing. Lacking any of that awkward, angry tension.

They stumble upon a caravan overrun with darkspawn and the dead a few days later, and she saves Alistair’s foolish backside with a well-timed fireball and then promptly ignores the awkward thanks he offers for it. He spends that evening sending her dour looks across the fire every few minutes, looking simultaneously angry and grateful, and it’s such a funny expression that she’d laugh if she weren’t so damned _pissed._

And then about a week after _that,_ they find themselves in a glade infested with fucking _nasty_ spiders – Maker, but Cedany hates the things, does not _care_ if she technically _is one_ some of the time because that is fucking _different,_ because she’s hated them since forever and will probably hate them ‘til the day she dies, which is apparently _not even that far away now_ – and she forgets she’s mad at him for just long enough to quip something his way over the twitching body of an arachnid. He grins, laughs, and that sound makes her angry enough that she point-blankly ignores his very presence all night and most of the next morning.

It’s not easy, ignoring Alistair. Honestly, she should be commended for the effort.

He’s stopped trying to talk to her at this point, but he’s still so wrapped up in the camp that avoiding him becomes the task of avoiding almost everyone and everything familiar to her. She wants to talk to Leliana? He’s sat by the fire with her, trading stories and jokes. She wants to chat with Morrigan? He and her have started up _another_ of their famed arguments, bickering like children until one or both of them are red in the face. She wants to get out of bed and _piss?_ Oh, _sorry,_ Cedany, but he’s using the bloody bush himself, and _where are you_ going _, Cedany?_

She winds up spending most of her time with Shale, which is… not something she ever thought she’d say. Though she _will_ say that the golem can be surprisingly funny, once you get over the general distaste for humanity it seems to possess. Which she has to, and quickly, because _Alistair is monopolising all of her other friends._

She _does_ find out that Shale doesn’t actually sleep, though, which is… a little bit unnerving. She doesn’t know _why,_ precisely; it’s not as though it eats, or drinks, or does anything _else_ normal. Maybe it’s just the thought of the big golem hanging around camp when everyone else is asleep. Watching. Cedany doesn’t like it when people _watch,_ not when she doesn’t want them to. She’s had enough of that to last a lifetime, thank you.

When she says as much to Shale, the golem laughs. “It is not so interesting as it might like to believe. All that bluster and brawling. It is less fun, when it sleeps.”

Which is— alright, a bit unnerving. Also, vaguely insulting? Cedany will maintain that she is _the most interesting thing_ to walk Thedas in… well, maybe ever. She’s _riveting._ Fascinating. She’ll not hear of anything less.

Shale laughs a lot after she voices that. She’s decided to think of it as _agreeing_ laughter.

At any rate, by the time that they stumble upon the Dalish camp – almost entirely by chance, because it turns out that locating a clan of Dalish elves is far from an exact science – she’s had almost two weeks to stew in her anger, and it’s starting to taste bitter. It only gets _worse_ when the Dalish leader turns around and says that they can’t actually help right now, sorry, got other things going on.

Because isn’t that just fucking _typical?_

Asking around the camp proves just how dire things have gotten for the elves here, though, so she straightens her spine, bemoans the Blight and the treaties both, then resolves to head into the forest and hunt down a wolf.

It’s almost funny, how much her life is starting to sound like the fairy-tales Clothilde used to tell the kids back in the Circle. Mostly, it’s just sad. And annoying. Very annoying.

She doesn’t take Alistair with her on the hunt. This is the first of her mistakes here, but it’s not her last, not by far.

“Ah,” Morrigan sighs as they round the first corner. “More forest. And here I thought we’d left the Wilds for good.”

“Well, you know what they say,” Cedany begins, fiddling with her pack.

“And what is that?”

“You can take the girl out of the Wilds, but you’ll never take— _shit!_ ”

And indeed, Cedany very nearly _does_ take a shit right then and there. Because there is a pack of _werewolves_ coming for them, _werewolves,_ and they’re about two feet taller than her and _werewolves,_ and fucking _fuck—_

Sten takes the first hit, because of course he does, but Cedany isn’t far behind, reaching for fire and finding swathes and swathes of it, unleashing an inferno on the beasts with the sudden understanding of a dam falling away. Beside her, Morrigan dances fluidly between hurling ice at them and curling entropy magic around those she misses in ways that are, honestly, maybe just a _bit_ past Cedany’s ken. Between the three of them and Zevran’s quick blades, his whirling strikes, it doesn’t take long to bring the creatures crashing down to the ground, bloody and furry and _big._

Over the ringing in her ears, Cedany hears herself laugh. “Fucking _shit,_ if that’s not the strangest thing we’ve ever done.”

Morrigan’s lips twitch, almost unruffled if not for the hitching rise-and-fall of her chest. “You do recall that two weeks ago you felled my _mother,_ do you not?”

“This beats that. _Flemeth_ looked like an old woman. Or a dragon. Either one is— normal, sort of.” She sways closer to the bodies, poking at one long canine limb with her boot. “Look at this. It’s like something out of a _story,_ or some shit.”

“Do you impugn the honour of Morrigan’s _beloved_ mother, then?” Zevran asks with a low chuckle, cleaning off his daggers. “For _shame,_ my dear.”

“I should think _killing_ her did that quite well already.”

Cedany snorts. “Eh, maybe. Not that I would _mind_ impugning some honour. But I mean, _look at this._ ”

Sten makes a disinterested noise, as though the various corpses of _actual werewolves_ surrounding them are nothing more than everyday casualties of a Wednesday. Which, that? Maybe a bit frightening. Maybe also _more_ than a bit annoying.

It’s at Sten’s urging that they keep moving, though the curious little Circle mage in Cedany wants nothing more than to sit down and poke at those things. Maybe claim a tooth or two as a trophy.

You know, normal stuff.

The next group of werewolves they encounter falls in much the same way. None of them even take much in the way of damage, and whatever they _do_ take, Morrigan’s quick to heal. Which isn’t as good as _Wynne_ healing them up, really, and Morrigan bitches about it much more, but it’s better than trying to set Cedany on everyone, at least. And it means she’s practically _skipping_ her way through the forest when it’s all over. Honestly, she’s beginning to fall in love with the place, just a bit; it really is gorgeous, light and airy in that way she loves, and the Fade buzzes close to her skin with every step she takes until she’s half-giddy with it, and now it _strokes her ego._ It’s the _best._

And then they run afoul, somehow, of both a great bear _and_ a pack of werewolves, and oh, no, it’s actually the _worst._

Things… things get very blurry. She thinks there’s a bear on top of her, at one point. Morrigan might be yelling in the distance. There’s a lot of red, _that_ she’s certain of. It’s all very dramatic.

After that, it’s just sort of a rush of green and brown and— oh, that’s lovely, she’s been sick. Wonderful.

Zevran is talking. She likes it when Zevran talks, she thinks. He’s funny. He always flirts back, too, which is _brilliant,_ because nobody else does. Not _properly,_ anyway.

Can’t shag that, though. Not now he’s seen her chuck up her guts. _Fuck_.

Things don’t really fall back into place until they get to camp, and Wynne does her— Wynne thing. She’s very good at healing, Wynne. If she weren’t so gung-ho-Circle-goodness, Cedany might like her more for that fact alone. Healing is fucking _hard._

She falls asleep at some point. She doesn’t really know how; near-death and injury seems like the sort of interesting thing she should _really_ try and retain consciousness for. Still. It happens.

When she finally wakes, it’s dark, and her head hurts. Her head hurts a _lot._ The world wobbles and whirls as she tries to heave herself upright, grunting with the effort. She needs a fucking drink. She needs something cold to put on her head. She needs—

To be sick.

“Woah, easy there, easy,” someone’s saying, hands gentle on her shoulders as she leans over the edge of her bedroll and breathes in deep through her nose. She’s in her tent. She will not be sick in her tent. _She will not be sick in her fucking tent._

The nausea passes slowly. Her mouth tastes like _shit_ from the last round of it, but at least there’s nothing new coming up. Small miracles, and all that.

Fuck, but her head _really does hurt._

“What happened?” she croaks out, turning and only realising the hands are _Alistair’s_ when she meets his eyes.

“You, uh— you took a bit of a tumble. Gave us all quite a shock, actually.” His brow is creased, but he’s trying to smile. She thinks, anyway. He looks a bit constipated, actually, now that she’s really looking. “Um. Do you want me to get you something? Someone? We didn’t think you’d be awake this soon.”

She grunts. “S’dark, innit? Don’t think that really _counts_ as soon.”

He shrugs. “I mean, in fairness, it’s only been a few hours. With the way you were, Wynne seemed to think you’d be down for most of the night.”

Groaning, she says, “everyone saw me vomit, didn’t they?”

“Ah— yep.”

“ _Wonderful_.” Another sigh, this one bone-deep and _long_. “Get me some water, would you?”

He scrambles out of the tent flaps like he’s been waiting to do it for hours. Like she’s _kicked_ him, or something. Which is ridiculous. _She’s_ the wounded party here, not him, both literally _and_ with regards to their little… tiff. Argument. Thing.

When he comes back, though, she doesn’t have it in her to snap at him. Her belly is still a bit tender, and her head pounds like a war drum, and there’s nowhere on her that doesn’t _hurt._ She wants to sleep for days. She wants to curl up next to Jowan and Eirene for the rest of her life. She wants—

Fuck, but she wants _everything_.

The water helps a bit. It cleans up that nasty fucking taste in her mouth, anyway, and that… that’s good. She thinks it’s good, anyway. Nothing seems all that _good_ , really, but it’s _better_ , at least.

After she’s put down the cup, Alistair clears his throat. “Better?”

“Yes. No. Fuck if I know.”

“Right. I’ll, uh, go get someone. Wynne.”

Cedany groans. “No.”

“No?”

“Not yet. Just. Give me a minute. Give me some quiet. My head’s pounding like a _motherfucker_.”

He shifts, looking abnormally large in her tiny tent. Abnormally large and very uncomfortable. It occurs to her, then, that this is the most they’ve talked in weeks. She… doesn’t really know what to think of that.

“I can go. If you want, I mean.”

Sighing into her palms, she hums a negative. “No. Just. Just stay, for now. For a minute.”

For a moment, he’s so quiet that she thinks he’s left anyway. She wouldn’t be surprised if he had, not really; maybe he thinks she’ll smack him if he lingers long enough. Or maybe he’s falling back on older prejudices; maybe he’s trying to figure out if she’s going to turn him into a _toad_ or something.

_That’s not fair._

It’s not. He’s improved, Alistair. If it weren’t for the abilities, she’d forget he was almost a templar at all. Sometimes she still does.

His armour creaks as he settles down, cross-legged, in the opening of her tent. He doesn’t say anything, just sort of… stares at the ground, like a loon.

She sighs. How the fuck is she supposed to do this sort of thing? Any time her and Jowan had an argument, they just sort of… let it sit. Took a few days away from each other, then went back. She’d go hang around Eirene, or she’d sneak off to a quiet corner with one of the other apprentices. Bother Linnet and Randall. Something. Then they’d come back together, tempers cooled, and just… move on.

Except there’s not really any moving on to do, here, is there? He lied to her. She’s dying. Life is shit.

Maker, her head hurts _way_ too much for this.

“I don’t remember—” She huffs. “How did I get here?”

Alistair shifts audibly. “Sten carried you back. The others said you got knocked about by a bear. Wynne thinks you’re lucky to be alive.”

She scoffs, carding her fingers through the tufts of hair brushing her forehead. “Yep. That’s me. Lucky to a fault. Can’t have anything but the _Grey Warden curse_ shuffling me off this mortal coil.”

 “That wasn’t what I meant,” Alistair says, his voice harder this time.

Cedany groans. “I don’t want to fight. I’m too tired to fucking fight.”

“Then stop _picking_ fights.”

“Picking fights is what I _do_.”

The sound he makes then _might_ be a laugh. Her ears are having a bit of trouble parsing sounds beyond the pounding in her temples, though, so she can’t be sure. What she _is_ sure of is him sighing, “well, you can say that again.”

“M’not going to apologise, you know.”

“For picking fights?”

“Ugh. No. For—” She peels a hand away from her head long enough to wave it about vaguely. “All this shit. The fight. The first one, I mean.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve already apologised for our first fight, actually.”

She frowns. “Did I come out with some bullshit while I was half-dead, or something?”

“No.” He snorts. It’s a soft sort of sound. She hadn’t even realised she’d missed it until now, but oh, yes, she had. That’s… irritating. Makes this whole thing a lot more complicated if she _misses_ him. She’s not supposed to _miss_ people, especially not the ones that fuck her about, and he’s— he’s _definitely_ done that.

For fuck’s sake.

“I meant the very first one. You know, the whole… _you’re a mage, I’m a templar, hear me roar_ — thing.”

Despite herself, she laughs. It’s rough and it’s quiet, but hey, it’s something. “I didn’t _apologise_ , not technically.”

His pauldrons squeak a bit, like he’s shrugging. “Well, yeah, maybe not _technically._ But believe it or not, I do _know_ you. I think I know what your not-apologies-but-actually-apologies look like by this point.”

That… alright, that maybe startles her a bit.

The only person to ever really _know_ her was Jowan, and that was— it was so _long_ ago, now. Lifetimes. The Cedany he’d known is long-dead, which is probably fitting, because the Jowan she’d known is too. Has been for a long time, really. She’s a whole different person now to the one she was before. She’s been a hundred-thousand different people since she left the Circle, in truth. A recruit. A Warden. A spellbind, some people have called her. A whore, others. But that’s— that’s different. That’s not her, not _all_ of her. And he knows that.

Alistair _knows_ her. And she knows him, doesn’t she?

Well.

Shit.

That’s… something.

She drops her head into her palms.

“You alright?”

She grumbles. Alistair seems to take this as a sound of pain, though, because then he’s standing up and running off to get Wynne, who starts to lightly berate them both for not getting her _immediately_ , then pokes and prods at Cedany until her nerves have been torn to shreds. Not even the sight of the older mage with her hair loose, wrapped up in a nightdress and looking considerably less put-together than she does during the day, can coax a smile out of her.

Alistair disappears at some point during all the aforementioned poking and prodding, before anything else can be said between them.

She doesn’t see him again for two days.

 

* * *

 

Wynne prescribes her with plenty of bedrest, so plenty of bedrest she gets. You don’t say no to Wynne when it comes to these kinds of things, after all, not even if you’re as brave (read: foolish) and determined (read: pig-headed) as Cedany likes to think she is.

It’s not… so bad?

Alright, it’s shit. She fucking hates it. Max keeps her company all day, but she can’t head back into the forest until Wynne deems her fit enough to do so, nor can she go anywhere else, and— look. She adores her mabari. He’s her precious beautiful baby boy who she _loves above all things in this world,_ and she would quite literally _die for him._ But he’s… well. He’s not the _best_ company. Face licks and cuddles can only occupy her so much, you know? Eventually, a girl starts to long for a conversation that isn’t half-conducted in huffs and barks. But the others keep disappearing during the day to try tracking down Witherfang themselves, and that leaves her with remarkably little to do, really. Shale is too big to sit in the tent with her, nor does it seem terribly inclined to do so, and everyone else who might’ve talked to her is occupied in the hunt. The hours are therefore mostly broken up by Wynne coming in to check on her, tilting Cedany’s head this way and that with gentle but firm hands and muttering about concussions and skull fractures with pursed lips.

 _She_ , at least, doesn’t seem too keen on spending any more time with Cedany than she has to, either, which is really the only blessing the warden can find in this entire situation. Though an argument with her might at least break up some of the dull monotony of her days, she supposes. Not that Wynne’s likely to rise to any of her usual taunts, given that she’s _above all that nonsense,_ and everything.

All that considered means that she’s prodding at a vaguely-exasperated Shale’s crystals in the mouth of her tent when Alistair deigns to come within ten metres of her again.

“But I want to know how they _work._ They’re _gorgeous,_ right, and you said they helped you use magic, or whatever, so they might be useful—”

“It is not getting any of _my_ crystals, thank you very much,” Shale retorts primly, shaking its head and batting away her hands.

“But they’re so _pretty._ ”

“Yes, they are. They are also mine.” It pins her with an imperious sort of look, which, coming as it is from a ridiculously tall golem made of stone, might actually be effective on anyone else.

Cedany, however, is not anyone else. She folds her arms and pouts a bit, ignoring the twinge in her ribs as the movement jostles her bruises. “Come _on,_ Shale. One? Just one? _Please?_ ”

“ _No_. You, over there. Come distract it so that it will stop jabbering at me.”

“Uh—” She turns to see Alistair hovering awkwardly by the fire, arms engulfed by bundles of firewood and shoulders a bit hunched, like he’s trying desperately not to be seen.

Really. He’s a head taller than her and thick with muscle to boot. She’d have to be _blind_ not to see him.  

He darts a frightened look her way, then turns back to the golem. “I’m— good, thanks.”

Shale makes a displeased sound. “I did not ask it if it was ‘good’. I asked it to distract its friend.”

Cedany swallows. ‘Friend’. Well. That’s probably an inaccurate title by this point, isn’t it? Judging by the look on his face, Alistair’s thinking the same thing. That— absolutely doesn’t do anything to her at all. Why would it? She’s angry with him. _She’s angry with him._

“Are you trying to imply that I’m not _your_ friend too, Shale?” she manages, clearing her throat.

It sniffs. “I do not know _what_ it is talking about.” Then, heaving itself to its feet, it says, “I tire of being prodded at. I will return when it is in a less annoying mood.”

This is usually the place where Alistair would chime in with something like ‘so, never’, but he doesn’t. The logs clatter as he releases them beside the fire, back turned to her, head a bit bowed.

He won’t talk. It’s awkward. It’s awkward, and Shale just _leaves her_ here! To _deal with it!_ What the _fuck?_

She teases a blade of grass between her fingers. Summer’s just around the corner, but it hasn’t gone dry and crisp and dead the way Zevran says it does in Antiva yet. It’s green and vibrant and bendy in her fingers, and—

Oh, for fuck’s sake, she really can’t do this.

“So, uh—”

“Did you—”

She half-chokes on her own tongue, wills herself silent so hard she feels it in the back of her throat. Like a blast of ice, or a gust of wind; dry, cracking, peeling. Winter’s set up shop in her body, and she doesn’t really know what to do about it.

Alistair shifts on his feet, clears his throat, then waves a hand her way.

“Go on.”

“No, I’m— good, you go.”

“No, really—”

“Normally you can’t wait to shut me up, seriously, just—”

He laughs at that, a quick huff of air that coils in her gut the way a dog might before a hearth. “Oh, come on, that’s not true.”

“Yeah?”

Alistair clears his throat. His voice, when it comes, is oddly soft. “Yeah.”

Something trips inside her chest. Maybe she should talk to Wynne about the scrape the bear got in there; it’d be just her luck to get an infection right as she was getting on the mend. Believe it or not, she doesn’t fancy spending another week in this bloody tent.

“You alright?” she asks after a minute, once the silence has stretched far enough to ache.

“What?” He jumps a bit, not quite a flinch, but something similar. “Oh, yeah. Yes. I’m fine. What—what about you? You know, with all the,” he gestures vaguely at her entire body, even though half of it is still lounging inside her tent, “that.”

“Right. This.” Despite herself, she finds her lips twitching. “Well. I’m feeling very valiant and heroic, actually.”

Alistair’s lips fold in on themselves a bit, like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “Really? Because you don’t actually—” And then he shuts his mouth so violently she hears his teeth click. Which is annoying. Seriously, he normally talks almost as much as she does. Where is his blabbermouth when she needs it?

“I didn’t what?”

“Nothing.”

She huffs, wishing he weren’t quite so high up, so she could glare at him properly. “I’m not going to _bite your bloody head off,_ Alistair, blimey.”

His eyes narrow, and the mirth leaks from his face all at once, the way she’s learned blood does from cotton when you beat it in the river. “Well, how am I supposed to know when you are and you aren’t? You didn’t really take any prisoners last time, Cedany.”

“Can you _blame_ me? You’d just told me I was going to _die._ As in, actually die. End of life. Departure from this mortal realm. What was I _supposed_ to do, jump up and do a jig?”

“No, I—” He exhales all at once, a harsh sigh that she almost thinks she feels ghosting against her skin, though he still stands several feet away. “I don’t know. I don’t know what I was expecting.”

“Right. Well.”

“Yeah.”

“I deserved to be angry. You should’ve told me.”

Scratching behind his ear, Alistair nods. “Yeah. I should have.” After a moment, he says, “I’m sorry.”

“You are?”

“Yeah.”

She inhales. Feels something ease in a nameless part of her torso, something she hadn’t fully realised was there. Then nods. “Right. Okay. Good. And I s’pose…” Ugh. It’s times like these that she misses Jowan. There was never any of this _apologising_ bullshit with Jowan. Jowan just let things live and let live. “I s’pose I’m sorry I snapped at you. Or whatever.”

The silence between them then is a physical one, one she feels pressing into her skin and through her scalp and under her nails, one that grows heavier with every second that passes. For a moment, she almost thinks he’s left. Maybe she’s dreamt up this entire conversation. Maybe she died under the bear and this is some odd sort of afterlife.

And then she looks up, and oh, right. No. None of that. The soft look in his eyes, the smile on his face— nah, those are real. She knows it.

She does.

**Author's Note:**

> shale ships it


End file.
